Note 2 — LETTER LVIII.
Reading edition
Such farms as were thrown up by their tenants, rather than submit to these conditions, I should be in no haste to re-let; but put land agents on them to cultivate them for the Society in the best manner, and sell their produce;—as soon as any well recommended tenant offered for them, submitting to our laws, he should have them for fixed rent. Thus I should give room for development of whatever personal faculty and energy I could find, and set, if successful, more easily followed example. Meantime my schools and museums, always small and instantly serviceable, would be multiplying among the villages,—youth after youth being instructed in the proper laws of justice, patriotism, and domestic happiness;—those of the Companions who could reside on the lands would, each on his own farm, establish entirely strict obedience to the ultimate laws determined upon as necessary:—if these laws are indeed, as I do not doubt but that sincere care can make them, pleasantly tenable by honest humanity,2 they will be gradually accepted voluntarily by the free tenants; and the system is as certain to extend itself, on all sides, once seen to be right, as the branches of an oak sapling.